The fire disaster at the Transnet warehouse at South Coast Road in Durban has been unprecedented.

"This is certainly the biggest fire of my career, and it is probably up there with the biggest, or is the biggest, [building] fire event in SA. That's purely a personal thing and will have to be quantified, but it's definitely the biggest I've ever seen," said Alex Gloster, a Durban Fire Department commander on the scene of the warehouse fire.

By Friday evening (24 March 2017) the Darul Ihsan Relief Team rallied and provided refreshments for 125 weary firefighters and emergency personnel at the scene of the fire which started at 9:30 AM.

Many of the firefighters at the scene did not consume food or drinks for most of the day as they were trying to control the massive fire which was aided by strong winds.

At a meeting in the morning the Ethekwini Disaster and Emergency Management Technical Task team was made aware of the fire, but at that stage the magnitude of the fire was unknown. Later in the afternoon Yvonne Badenhorst, chairperson of the Technical Team, made a plea to Abdul Saeed Shaik, Head of Operations of the Darul Ihsan Centre Relief Team, for victuals/refreshments for their firefighting and emergency personnel.

Many on duty expressed their sincere thanks and appreciation for the much needed refreshments and members of Ethekweni Disaster Management praised Darul Ihsan Centre for their prompt intervention.

The 911 Paramedics team on site also thanked the Relief Team for providing refreshments.

The Deputy Mayor of Ethekwini Municipality, Cllr Fawzia Peer, contacted Abdul Saeed Shaik and thanked the Relief Team of Darul Ihsan Centre for being on regular call to ‘Ethekwini Disaster and Emergency Management’ and their expedient response.